The Truth is a Beautiful and Terrible Thing
by ArsinoeB
Summary: Dumbledore finds out what had happened to make Merlin the man he knows in the future. Dark, deaths. Arthur/Merlin, slight Albus/Gellert.


Dumbledore finds it quite accidentally, following an off-hand remark by Tom Riddle to Caractacus Burke. In his memory, Burke is closing the shop for the evening while Riddle tells about his day. Dumbledore is idly waiting for possible allusions to the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, and amuses himself in the meantime by trying to spot the matching merchandise of Borgin and Burkes circa 1946 and today (the tally is thus far 12).

"A man named Ambrosius Wyllt came here today and asked for Mr. Borgin. Do you know him?" Riddle reports, and instantly Dumbledore's full attention is back to the scene. He has learned to take notice of inconsistencies for clues, and this is one of them: Ambrosius Wyllt should not exist — at least not anymore as he died in 1945 along with the rest of the inner circle of Grindelwald.

But the description fits ("Yes, that's him! Quite distinctive ears"), and Dumbledore forgets the Ravenclaw diadem completely, especially when Riddle adds, "I will go to his cottage tomorrow to —"

In a second Dumbledore is out of the memory, but he's still over fifty years too late. He is uncharacteristically shaking when he Apparates from Hogsmead to the perimeter of a ruined Welsh cottage dating from the Middle Ages that used to belong to Wyllt. Ambrosius Wyllt was Grindelwald's closest confidant and shared many of his secrets. In light of the new information, it was hardly a coincidence that Dumbledore's opponents had similar fighting styles in the duel at the Ministry of Magic and in the one fought fifty years earlier in the forest of Schwarzwald.

The ruins are completely deserted, and there seems to be no trace of magic of any kind. But Dumbledore knows now better, and he has nothing to lose by looking around. He crosses the decayed wooden gate, and instantly, to his surprise, he is in a well tended garden facing a thirty-year-old Wyllt drinking tea.

Dumbledore freezes.

"Dumbledore," Wyllt acknowledges and offers him a chair, the table set for two as if Dumbledore were in a habit of calling every Tuesday evening for tea. Wyllt looks precisely the same as he did fifty years earlier with the subtle, wry gleam intact in his eyes. Dumbledore feels extremely apprehensive, but he forces himself to remain calm, and sits down.

"Who are you?" he asks. This man might have been the unofficial second in command during Grindelwald's reign of terror and a powerful sorcerer on his own, but Dumbledore was present at his funeral. _At his cremation in this very same location_. Wyllt had been dead without any doubt. Only Voldemort has ever managed to survive —

And he might have just found an answer to a question he never even posed. Just where exactly did Grindelwald and Voldemort find all that extensive knowledge about the Dark Arts while Dumbledore himself had such difficulties?

"Good question," Wyllt responds and sips his tea. "If I told you, it would indeed clear many things. I was once known as Ambrosius Wyllt, but that is not who I really am."

So, no answer at all. However, it confirms Dumbledore's suspicions that there is a backstrory here, somewhere. But more than that Dumbledore needs to know about the motives of Wyllt if he wants to win this war. He raises his head, and looks squarely in Wyllt's eyes. "What do you want?"

A heartbeat later Dumbledore realizes just how spectacularly bad an idea it was to try to use Legilimency. He has time to register the malicious grin on Wyllt's face and his eyes turning into molten gold before his thoughts and memories are a raging whirlwind in his mind. _Adriana, before the accident. Sleeping baby Harry with an ugly, bloody scar. Eating his first lemon sorbet. Sybill Trelawney in the Hog's Head, giving the prophecy of Harry and Voldemort._ The pace of whirling memories accelerates until he can no longer remember or feel anything. His last coherent thought is certainty that he will lose his mind.

At once it all stops.

_Gellert is lying on the grass, arms behind his head. His eyes are closed, golden hair gleaming in direct sunlight, his mouth in a triumphant, lazy grin._ It has been nearly a hundred years, but the memory can still make Dumbledore ache.

Suddenly, it is all over, and he's alone in his mind again, staring at Ambrosius Wyllt. For the first time, the malicious edge is absent from Wyllt's face, and he looks much younger than his thirty years.

After a pause Wyllt says, looking at his almost empty teacup, "Potter can defeat Voldemort if that is what has been foretold as his destiny. I will no longer interfere." His promise seems sincere, but extremely confusing.

"Why?" Dumbledore asks as questions seem to be his sole contribution to this conversation.

Wyllt looks up. "I have not revealed this to anybody before, and I doubt I will reveal it to anybody in the future. But I'll make an exception for you."

A flash of golden eyes, and Dumbledore is in the middle of a clearing, in an unfamiliar forest in late autumn. He is momentarily petrified before he turns around and sees a young man by the fire, deathly pale, nervously poking at the logs. There is no question that the young man isn't Wyllt at the age of around twenty, but it is the innocent air of the younger Wyllt that captures Dumbledore, so completely at odds with the image that he has of Ambrosius Wyllt.

Young Wyllt continues fretting by the fire, watching the flames while muttering silently to himself. Suddenly, a knight in full armor emerges from the forest, and his medieval appearance shocks Dumbledore to the core. The knight looks furious, red-faced, his golden hair wet with perspiration and the sword unsheathed in his hand.

Before the knight has time to say anything, young Wyllt is in front of him, kneeling on the left knee, head held down, the submission so uncharacteristic that Dumbledore has to blink a couple of times.

"Arthur," pleads young Wyllt. "iPlease/i, believe me when I say that my magic has always been at your service. The dr—" he gulps, pauses, "I was gifted the magic so that I could serve you. Help you."

There is a moment of silence, and Dumbledore can only stare, rooted to the spot.

Finally, the knight, Arthur, demands, "Wyllt. Swear to me, _swear_ that you have never used or will never use your magic against me or Cearleon," his voice rough and face impassive, "and I might spare your life."

Young Wyllt raises his head and swears on his mother's life, showing for the first time traces of solace.

The scene changes to a battlefield in the middle of chaos, knights and horses in disarray, wounded and dead covering most of the ground. This memory feels different, the colors more grim and the air colder with a smell of dirt and blood. Dumbledore is puzzled before he understands that Wyllt had altered the previous memory, so subtly that it was unnoticeable, and this is real and untouched.

The significance is not lost on Dumbledore, and he looks around more closely than before. When he spots an older Arthur on horseback with the dragon standard flying behind him, his sword raised above head, he recognizes first the crest and then the man. King Arthur. _King Arthur_ and —

Dumbledore turns around, shock and apprehension slowing him down, and stares incredulously at the man behind him that he has known as Ambrosiuos Wyllt for the most part of his life. Finally, all the pieces fit together. _Merlin_. Merlin, the greatest warlock of all time.

It is a relief to have an explanation to the enormous power that Wyllt, _Merlin_, possesses. There has been no-one like him before just as there will be no-one like him after. But next comes fear because Merlin is still alive, immensely powerful, older in years than Nicolas Flamel ever was, but younger in appearance — and mad.

Dumbledore has no time to reflect what had happened to make Merlin the man he knows in the future before the answer is played before his own eyes: this battlefield is Camlann.

When Arthur is about to draw his last breath, his head cradled in Merlin's hands, time stops. Dumbledore has never known that anyone could have the power to accomplish this with pure will, but _this is Merlin_. In the stillness of time, Dumbledore can feel the flow and force of magic as he has never been able before, and the power that Merlin possess is more than Dumbledore could have ever imagined, raw but immense. The world outside of Merlin and Dumbledore will never know how close it came to be destroyed as the color of Merlin's eyes changes from warm gold to a more brown variant with traces of scarlet —

— and there is a talking dragon in a huge cave, probably one of the last dragons capable of speech before they were all killed by warlocks for Muggle bounties, and Merlin looking the youngest that Dumbledore has seen him thus far.

"Arthur is the once and future king of Albion, who will —"

— Merlin with a pale, dark-haired woman in a small room that looks like a cell. There is little else in the room than a battered old mattress, a plate and a glass on a stool and a chamber pot in the corner. The woman is holding a crystal stone in her hand, turning it around nervously.

"He will come back some day, Merlin. I have seen it, and it has been foretold that he will return in time of need," she says, softly.

"But I will not live long enough for that, will I?" Merlin asks just as softly, but his voice hollow.

The woman is silent for a long time, and something snaps in Merlin.

Afterwards, when Merlin cradles the crystal in his hands, Dumbledore knows who invented the first Horcrux.

But it is the last memory that will haunt Dumbledore for the short rest of his life.

This time, even though it's summer, Dumbledore recognizes the clearing in the forest. It's close to midday, and the sun is shining in full force, reflected almost blindingly from the golden hair of Arthur who is sprawled on a slight slope of grass, smiling in his sleep. Merlin, sitting next to him, is watching Arthur intensively with an unguarded expression that tells Dumbledore all he needs to know.

The legends tell that the Order of the Merlin was founded because Merlin believed that wizards could help Muggles and live peacefully with them. It's easy to believe them when Merlin bends down and kisses Arthur awake, first on his forehead, then on his eyelids and finally on the mouth. Dumbledore retreats deeper into the forest when the clothes start to come off amidst the lazy rolling of bodies across the grass. He sits down on a fallen log and listens to the faint laughter, and thinks about the beautiful and terrible things people have done in the name of love until the scene fades, and he is sitting once more next to Ambrosius Wyllt.

To cover his disorientation, Dumbledore moves his hand towards his teacup, but Wyllt prevents it by grabbing him by the wrist.

"I will let go this once, but I will not stop. It's only a matter of time before the next war is upon us again. But know that neither you nor any of your confidants will be able to find me. From here or anywhere else." He looks straight at Dumbledore, and his eyes look a little mad.

Dumbledore nods and Wyllt lets go of his hand —

— and he is back in the backyard of the ruined cottage again.

Dumbledore walks for a long while in the overgrown garden before he Apparates back to Hogsmead.


End file.
